SAVE A BOOK III:
The 1905 Seattle Baist's Real Estate Atlas
G. William Baist, Surveyor and map publisher of Philadelphia, produced Baist's real estate atlases from the turn of the century to the mid-1930s. The Baist's Real Estate Atlas; Surveys of Seattle, Wash. are based on official records, private plans and actual surveys conducted by Baist employees. The University Libraries owns three Baist atlases, from 1905, 1908, and 1912.
The 1905 Baist's Real Estate Atlas covers Seattle from 85th Street on the north to Andover Street on the south, and West Seattle from its northernmost point at Duwamish head to 7th Street on the south. The atlas contains a total of 24 plat maps. These maps show locations and names of major buildings; the construction material, e.g., brick, frame, or stone, for each structure on a lot; electric and steam rail lines; water mains and fire hydrants; major additions; and some projected projects, such as the Lake Washington ship canal.
The Baist atlases receive heavy use from researchers in many fields, including history, architecture, geography, anthropology, and engineering. Like other city atlases, the Baist atlases may have started as items of popular sale, but, because of their content, they became most useful to city officials, real estate businesses, and insurance companies. Since the atlases quickly went out of date, many of them were discarded, leaving a few scarce copies.
Since the 1905 Baist's was so heavily used, the original binding was badly worn. Both the front and back covers and some of the maps were detached. Maps were breaking on the center fold, and in some places peeling off the linen backing.
The 1905 Baist's atlas was restored in memory of Imogene L. Miller Robbin in 1994 with Save A Book funds. The conservation work was done by Information Conservation, Inc. in Brown Summit, North Carolina. The atlas was disbound. The individual sheets mended, spray deacidified, and encapsulated in mylar. The sheets were then bound on the left edge in a buckram post binding.
The 1908 and 1912 Seattle Baist's atlases were also in poor condition. They were restored in 1995 by Information Conservation with funding provided by the Friends of the UW Libraries.
Images of The Baist's Real Estate Atlas; Surveys of Seattle, Wash. before and after conservation
Maps from both the 1905
and 1912 Baist's Real Estate Atlas